“I can’t say much about it. The whole of that experience was like an evening in spring. As short and as beautiful. And we felt . . . we felt that this was only the beginning. One feels that on an early spring evening there is so much in reserve; first the season when the may comes; and then full summer—long summer evenings with bees in the heather; and, afterwards, autumn with the rowan berries. It was like that. We were waiting on an evening of that kind with just the confidence that young people have in all the beautiful things which will happen in the ordinary passage of time.
“And that was all. She died. Cruelly . . . cruelly. Without any warning. She was only ill three days. That is the kind of thing that makes a man despise life. I had lost everything . . . everything . . . utterly lost everything . . .”
He paused. Eva had drawn back her chair a little from the light. She was crying. It was impossible for her to speak. She wondered if she should have spoken. Out of the darkness they heard a deep and throaty rumble.
“Lion,” said M‘Crae.
After that there followed a silence.
At last he spoke.
“And then my life began . . .
“A blow of that kind knocks a man silly for a time. When he opens his eyes after it nothing looks the same. I was restless. I wanted to find something new to fill the gap in my mind. I hated that little house at Muizenberg in which I had promised myself to end my days. The only thing that did me any good was walking, the lonelier the better. I used to walk over the neck of the peninsula and climb Table Mountain, up above the Twelve Apostles. I’d walk there for hours in the white mist that lies on the top—they call it the tablecloth. I’ve slept there more than once when the fog has caught me. And though I’ve never been back there since those days I was just sane enough to remember that it’s a wonderful place for flowers. There’s many very pretty things there.
“One evening when I came down from the mountain I saw a youngish man looking at my plumbago hedge. ‘Pretty place you’ve got here,’ he said. ‘Kind of place that would just suit me.’ ‘What do you want it for?’ says I. He blushed . . . he was a nice young fellow. . . . ‘Getting married,’ said he. That nearly did me. I could have burst out crying on the spot. But I got him in for a sundowner all the same. He started telling me all about the young lady. ‘If you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘I’d rather not hear. Don’t think that I want to offend you. But if you want the house you can have it. You can have it for two-thirds what it cost me.’ I’d almost have given it him.
“In a week we had the thing settled. That year they found gold in the Zoutspanberg district. It was new country, very mountainous and wild. I didn’t mind where I went as long as I could forget the other thing. I went there by easy stages, seeing a goodish bit of country. I sunk my money there . . . there and in Zululand. And I lost it—every penny of it but the little bit which was coming in to me, with a scrap of interest, for the Muizenburg farm. I lost my money . . . but I think I found myself.